


Cursed Observation

by ravinilla



Series: there are just some things you shouldn't see [1]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Introspection, M/M, Post-Chapter 698 (Naruto), Relationship Study
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 10:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13588473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ravinilla/pseuds/ravinilla
Summary: Shikamaru doesn't appreciate having to see what everyone else seems to avoid seeing.





	Cursed Observation

**Author's Note:**

> Practically rewrote Sept. 02.18.

Shikamaru is a lot of things, but nosy isn't one of them. Rather than nosy, he'd like to call it _observant_ —as in, he just so happens to see a lot of things that may slip under the radars of others. One example is how Sakura and Ino will disappear together during their breaks at the hospital. Another is how much time Hinata spends with Kiba and Shino instead of her own clan, and how they can be found playing with Akamaru in the training fields more often than not.

Another is how Lady Tsunade will pop a vein when Naruto so much as breathes Sasuke's name in her presence.

He understands—sort of. The esteem Lady Tsunade holds Naruto in has always been... high. Shikamaru has no place to say it, but Naruto is to Tsunade what Asuma was (still is) to him: a driving force. Something to work for. As close a point of salvation as one could find in their lives. Sure, Lady Tsunade could murder Naruto with a flick of her finger, but that's not what he means.

Her stubbornness is notorious; he'd heard the stories about her, about the Sannin during the second Great War and each of their aftermaths—how she refused to treat anyone anymore. How she fled the village in fear and self-loathing and then subsequently avoided it for decades for the same reasons. Shikamaru doesn't blame her because he's not sure he'd do much different in her position.

Then came Naruto with his big dreams and even bigger mouth, and she's practically putty in his hands. That's kind of... his thing. Thing, capital 'T', proper noun. There's no better way to phrase it.

Naruto doesn't come with simple explanation—gather up the greatest scholars this world has to offer and they could never conclude with anything coherent, but they would all leave affected. (Shikamaru has been affected, too. He hasn't met a single person who hasn't been. It's _contagious.)_ What Naruto is, the world has never been prepared for. It's easiest to leave it at that.

The point is... he's very important to Lady Tsunade, so Shikamaru surmises that it ruffles her favorite boy, _her heir,_ want someone like Sasuke.

As for Sasuke himself, it's not like Shikamaru has much personal against him—in fact, none of them do. Their feud with him had to do with the village, its protection, and the protection of its people; reasonable. It's complicated when the whole story comes into play. Sasuke had always been a good—not great, kind of an asshole, really—guy, and the way he'd fit into his team was just like a missing puzzle piece. They'd never been friends before and that sure as hell didn't change when he came back.

Still, Shikamaru thinks of Sasuke in terms of, _What if I were him?_ He can't say he would or wouldn't turn out the same, but with baggage as heavy as Sasuke's (the weight of the world, heavier than anyone knows, more crushing than Shikamaru has ever _wanted_ to know), well... It does things to a person. In hindsight, it only seems natural that the strongest person any of them has ever known would help shoulder that weight.

Most people think it's odd; why would Naruto go to the _ends of the earth_ for someone he hated and hated him in kind? Hate isn't the right word, Shikamaru thinks. He'll never claim to know them better, but they've never hated each other and everything they did never made the idea cross his mind. Sure, they've been at each other's throats all their lives, but even when Shikamaru was young and didn't have as wide a scope of emotional comprehension and how to apply it to people in unfortunate situations, he thought of it more as... desperation.

It's never been any of Shikamaru's business and he's never _wanted_ it to be any of his business, but he remembers that desperation with stifling clarity and how it showed itself throughout their childhoods; little things others either didn't notice or didn't want to. Naruto watching Sasuke during their first Chuunin Exams. Sasuke's absolute need to chase and hold down Naruto when he got himself into dire situations. Naruto's determination to followup a hundred times more powerful to meet Sasuke. Sasuke's—

  


—attempts to separate himself from Naruto.

  


  


(Naruto's _desperation_ to chase after Sasuke.)

  


  


...Shikamaru, more or less, remembers when he realized Naruto was not Naruto without Sasuke. It was the day they left on his first mission as a chuunin, as a squad leader—the day they were sent out to retrieve Sasuke. To see Sakura cry hurt in a way he didn't understand (though now that feeling stands in parallel to seeing Ino in pain), but Naruto's reaction had been shock—and then an odd look of empathy and compassion. Right then, a lot of things clicked into place.

_"Because of Sasuke, you're in pain. I can understand."_

Losing a teammate like that—not to death but to their _own_ volition, which had to have led into questions like, _What did I do wrong? Was I not good enough? Why couldn't I stop them?—_ is dark stuff and Shikamaru doesn't have the audacity to even try putting himself in their positions, but that one look from Naruto... He can almost imagine it. Even when Naruto had returned to the village with Jiraiya, that pain wasn't gone; layers of determination (desperation) had just concealed it.

Years later and the rancid bitterness in the back of Shikamaru's throat has still yet to leave.

These days, when he spots them strolling to village together like they've never been separated once in their whole lives, that expression flashes through his mind. What would Sasuke think with those photographic eyes of his if he had to recall that face in perfect detail? Maybe it's nasty of Shikamaru to say, but that guilt would be warranted (but Sasuke isn't such a stranger with the suffocating feeling anymore, is he? They can all see it, but no one says anything.)

Times come when Shikamaru feels like a thief after clandestine moments, so he puts a lot of conscious effort into not noticing more than he should. Wasted efforts. Can he be blamed? Those two practically _radiate_ their crooked devotion; Sasuke with his glances of wonderment because Naruto might just be a dream, or Naruto's longing gaze that makes it seem like Sasuke will disappear any second. For gods' sakes, it's _embarrassing._

Here he is, trying his damnedest to turn the other cheek, but it's like... being forced to peek through a keyhole into a world forbidden. They're just so obvious that it _hurts._ (If anyone shares his position, they don't mention it to each other either. It's the kind of burden one has to carry alone, drag to the grave in fear of divine punishment.)

Others are blissful in their ignorance of this thing that just _is_ and he sure wishes he could join them instead of this miserable intrusion that he wants nothing to do with. More than one occasion has heard him cursing his natural observation skills, but at this point, he's convinced that some god above wants him to bear witness to all of this and be the one who sees it play out. To not be someone important in their lives but be an audience to what there is between them... It's a nauseatingly high mantle.

Their weird little bond is so potent that he has to notice these things even from a distance (he's so unlucky); the looks, the touches, the unsettled issues, the tied-up loose ends. The rest of the world is _willful_ in not wanting to see it, but he has to and it's...

It's Naruto beaming at Sasuke like the sun. It's Sasuke and his subtle touching of Naruto like he's his lifeline.

(It's so much. It's too much.)

If possible, it's worse when they're apart. Their holes _gape,_ are so flagrantly obvious that they might as well scream their time apart from the rooftops. Shikamaru has to see Naruto's hurry to return. He has to see Sasuke's glances to catch sight of bright blonde hair. They're always in such a hurry to get back, and— _Do they even know how to be their own people anymore?_

(That's unhealthy.)

Naruto and Sasuke. Sasuke and Naruto. What's that thing people say? Distance makes the heart fonder? Then they must be what happens when one chases the other for years, finally catches up, and then is staunchly unwilling to let go. Does distance actually make the heart grow fonder, or does it stretch the heart to its limits and produce some kind of separation anxiety?

(Probably. It also seems to come with blowing each other's arms off, but semantics.)

It makes Shikamaru a bit sick.

How the hell do they _deal_ with it? He's never known how to be anything but his own person, even as a continuation of a tradition that stretches back for generations beyond imagination. Ino and Chouji may as well be his everything, but for Naruto and Sasuke, it's— _different._ Extreme, he'd might say.

(Then again, neither of them seem capable of anything else _but_ extreme. When you're the two most powerful shinobi to exist, why hide?)

Their lines have blurred to the point where now, they simply _are._ Are as one. Extensions of each other. Two halves of a whole. Staggeringly so. It's such a romanticized notion that everyone wants for their own, but they don't understand what it actually _means_ to be a part of a bond like that. Even his own flimsy understanding allows him to know better than to think of wanting it; he knows that no one else _should_ want it. If they were forced to see it like he is, surely they wouldn't anymore.

It is, in a word, terrifying. That they seem at peace with not knowing where one begins and the other ends baffles Shikamaru to the point where he doesn't want to think about it, and _how the hell can they not care about losing themselves like that?_ He's not sure how they cope, how they face such an absolutely fucking _terrifying_ existence.

(Together, he supposes, like they always have. Like they always will.)

Do Naruto and Sasuke even _know_ what they look like to the outside world? To _not_ know would be cruel of them, Shikamaru thinks, but with that impenetrable... whatever the hell it is enveloping them when they're together, that _barrier,_ their ignorance wouldn't be surprising. It's like the rest of them simply exist in a simulation made for them. What a powerful thing it is; too powerful to be aware of, but—

There have been times when Shikamaru has seen Sasuke—and Sasuke has found him in turn, caught his reluctant studying red-handed. With his single-eyed gaze, dark and effortlessly cognizant, he'll pin Shikamaru in place like he's using Nara jutsu against him—and Shikamaru, for all that he's never been intimidated by Sasuke, will not move; will find that he _can't_ move.

He knows. Sasuke knows exactly what they look like to outsiders. Even when Naruto is there and blabbering in his ear about one thing or another, he has enough awareness to look outwards. He's aware that yes, there is a world that exists outside of them and yes, they come in a set no matter what—he just doesn't care. (Why should he? It's pretty obvious to Shikamaru that, sickeningly enough, all he needs is right next to him.)

And he'll smile. He'll smile and his eye will curve, because he knows.

(Shikamaru thinks he knows Sasuke well enough to know that he could use it as a weapon in his pride, which would be a whole lot more unsettling if it were anyone _but_ Naruto at his side. Shikamaru isn't one for dramatics, but Sasuke's force of nature is only countered and balanced by Naruto's, protecting... well, everyone. If Naruto is aware of that, he doesn't show it. He's always been the oblivious idiot who no one gives enough credit.)

This understanding of how Naruto is not without Sasuke and Sasuke is not without Naruto strains Shikamaru; not like a complex puzzle that has catharsis in completion, but more like a high-stakes disaster on the horizon that the fate of many rests on. Frankly, it's going to give him early gray hairs.

Still, for all that he's aware of this daunting truth, relief is handed to him in that Sasuke seems to realize it too and has completely accepted it. Thrown himself head-first into it. Probably never wants to come back from it. The point is, it lets Shikamaru separate himself from it, though he might not ever be able to push it out of his mind completely. Small mercies. Really... small fucking mercies.

Relaxing and having time to oneself is something Shikamaru greatly appreciates, so for those two to seem not to is— _ugh._

But...

Practically cursed or not, overwhelmed by their attachment or not, he's got no room to judge them. Maybe he even admires the fact that after all they've been through, they still want to be together. It's a marvel, to say the least.

A marvel, a miracle, all those words that try to explain what's beyond human comprehension—and none of his business. He'll eventually get around to scrubbing his hands of the troublesome, earth-shattering truth, happily scrubbing until squeaky clean and free of the burden.

(He doubts the shackles of his instincts to take in every detail possible will allow it, but... It's the thought that counts.)

**Author's Note:**

> I was really interested in writing SNS from Shikamaru's point of view because 1) I love Shikamaru, and 2) I like trying to look at relationships from other characters' points of view. I think I may make this a series, following up with the likes of Sai, Tsunade, Kakashi, Sakura, Hinata, maybe Gaara, and... That's it? I'm not sure, and not in that particular order. It's been a long time since I've written or posted Naruto fanficion, and to tell you the truth, I didn't even finish the series because of it's horrendous ending, so if there are mistakes, I mean... Oh well. I hope I didn't fuck up Shikamaru's characterization too much! Thanks for reading.
> 
> Crossposted to [Tumblr](https://uchiuzus.tumblr.com/post/170552465583).


End file.
